November 2, 2012

‘‘Some of the voting machines do have battery backup,’’ New York State Board of Elections spokesman Tom Connolly told the Associated Press. ‘‘We are also planning to get generators to polling sites, but it’s not like we have an unlimited supply of generators.’’ In New York City members of the Board of Elections have been assessing the damage to polling places, and Mayor Bloomberg said they might have to use alternative locations in some cases. The Daily News reports that in devastated areas like Breezy Point and the Rockaways, voting may take place in tents equipped with generators.

While Christie has been occupied by relief efforts, in New Jersey Secretary of State and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno said on Thursday that the state is planning to deploy military trucks to polling stations that have lost power. Guadagno said people at these locations will vote using a paper ballot....

Presumably, there will be a way for everyone who tries to vote to be able to vote, but fewer people will try. There's some complacency: "Since the states hit hardest are all solidly blue, lower voter turnout won't swing the presidential election...." The state gets the same number of electoral votes regardless of how many people actually vote. That means, however, that lower turnout concentrates the power of those who do vote. If enough of the "red" people in those blue states get out when the "blue" people stay home, the state — and all its electoral votes — could go to the "wrong" candidate. Or do you imagine that would only happen if the election ended up being a blowout for Romney anyway?

How far back do you need to scroll in the history of Electoral Maps to get to a year where New Jersey/New York/Connecticut picked the Republican? 1988 to get New Jersey and Connecticut. 1984 to get New Jersey and Connecticut and New York. 1984, of course, was a complete blowout for Reagan, with Mondale getting only his home state of Minnesota, but 1988 was pretty much of a blowout too.

A recent New Jersey poll — just before the hurricane hit — had Obama ahead by only 10 points. He won by 16 points in 2008, and older polls showed him with a bigger lead. It's not inconceivable that the state that elected Chris Christie could choose Romney even without a hurricane-depressed turnout.

I can't imagine a scenario, by the way, where enough of NY's votes are depressed by a hurricane that a Republican wins at the presidential level; it might be able to swing some districts, but state-wide elections won't change, I think.

Then again, the other possibility is that horrendous mismanagement by Bloomberg (who recently hitched his wagon to Obama, note), might do enough to not just depress Obama voters, but to actually flip weak partisans or soft voters. If I found out people might die because my mayor is an idiot, I might vote to spite him too.

Yea screw the hospitals, the invalids, the homeless. Got to get those polls open for Obama!

Say that trillion dollar RAT HOLE called 'stimulus' could surely have been used to BURY THE POWERLINES or other useful things. But I guess flower pots and 'green' companies that failed were more important, at least to donating to Obama's re-election.

According to my understanding of the Supreme Court in Bush vs Gore, the NYS legislature could offer up a slate of electors if the election went totally tits up downstate and upstate elected a Republican. These would represent the will of the legislature according to the constitution and nobody's vote in those states would count.

Long Island has a lot of red too, so this makes that scenario less likely.

Tim: That is entirely theoretically possible, but it would lead to such a violent (not in the rioting sense, but in the politically voting a lot of bums out sense) that if NY were to subvert the will of its voters, it would turn the local government so deep red it might as well be TX. Most people, even committed partisans, believe in fair play at election time and will not stand for nonsense like that.

Apparently, thousands of tourists are now descending on Staten Island for a 26 mile vanity run, and the Mayor is diverting extensive resources to support them. FDNY trucks that were moving refugees to shelters are now moving metal posts to line the marathon route. Hotels have to decide whether to honor the tourists' reservations, or continue to house refugees. Two thousand port-a-potties are being placed at the start line, while locals in lower Manhattan still can't flush their toilets. Generators capable of powering over a thousand homes are being set up for a media tent at the finish line, while hospitals are transporting their critical patients. Hundreds of police officers will be diverted to line the marathon route, while others are continuing the search for bodies and residents in need to rescue.

I haven't seen numbers yet on the number of stations with bottled water and energy bars that will be set up along the route.

I think worse then this, is the images now coming forward of people freezing without electricity. Where is Obama, the great leader. Why did he close down so many power plants. He has left us out in the cold.

I can't imagine a scenario, by the way, where enough of NY's votes are depressed by a hurricane that a Republican wins at the presidential level

What do big governments do best? Screw up.

What is Bloomberg's main concern today? Making sure a marathon goes off with minimum snafu! Staten Island and Coney Island are utterly destroyed, with citizens complaining that there are other areas that were severely damaged besides MANHATTAN.

Upstate and western New York are far more conservative than the coast-hugging megalopoli.

If the progs get frustrated/can't get to the polls without unnecessary complications/have waits too long to vote due to paper ballots/it's wet/it's cold/I WANT MY IPAD CHARGED...well, just how resilient is a prog attitude which depends upon paid others to make things the way they should be for civilized, non-flyover sophisticates?

Upstate/west-state crawl-over-glass-to-vote moderates and conservatives (who probably were comparatively unaffected by Sandy, anyway) overwhelm the low turnout in the megalopolis.

Never mind that humans are starving, freezing and have no power. Let's make sure the politicians needs come first. Oh, and marathon runners too.

Anyone seen FEMA? Bueller? Bueller? Remember when Geraldo and others were in New Orleans screaming their lungs out at Bush for not getting FEMA assistance to New Orleans on a rapid basis.

Crickets. Crickets.

Sean Penn, why aren't you and your film crew on Staten Island right now? Or do you not need to show compassion when a Democrat is POTUS? A POTUS who got a bit of mud on shis shoes then winged his way to Vegas for yet another fund raiser.

"Sean Penn, why aren't you and your film crew on Staten Island right now? Or do you not need to show compassion when a Democrat is POTUS? A POTUS who got a bit of mud on shis shoes then winged his way to Vegas for yet another fund raiser."

Spike Lee, too. Surely there's a documentary you can be shooting there.

"Utility crews from several states East of the Mississippi River hit the road this week to volunteer their time and talents in Northeastern states hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. But crews from Alabama got the shock of their lives when other workers in a coastal New Jersey town told them they couldn’t lend a hand without a union card."

I really don't know how you can look in the mirror every day if you are of a particular partisan persuasion. There is virtually no issue where being one would not embarrass a decent person if they cared to face what their fellow partisans do. It's a kind of attraction to the bottom of the barrel, and I don't understand it.

Not only are there 3 massive generators being used to power the media tent for the marathon, on is a redundent backup, in case one of the 2 actually being used goes tits up.

Police resources are being diverted for the race while the #sandylootcrew gets more and more brazen. That's gonna leave a mark when the morons realize there's nothing left to loot in their own neighborhoods guess whose is next!

The unionizing of the relief effort has already been covered. Bitch don't want our help, bitch don't get our help.

And even more shocking, motels are evicting people made homeless by the storm to allow marathoners their granted, reserved rooms. There is an emergency going on...if you ain't there to help clean up, GTFO!!!!

I thought at first Benghazi would put Mitt easily over the top, but this one is hitting the lib's where they live. And because it is here in the US, the LSM can't ignore it like they are doing with Benghazi.

Indies are going to look at this and flood towards Romney. I was predicting an easy win earlier, I am starting to see a crush coming on.

Personally I think they only people going to the polls in affected areas WILL be Republicans. And those Dems who do go are REALLY pissed right now at Bloomberg and Obama. Three more days of this and all hell is going to break loose there.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334535.php

This is turning into a New Orleans type Katrina versus a Mississippi Gulf Coast Katrina. Shit is gonna start flying.

Jaersey and CT are both within the Romster's grasp. I don't doubt they want those machines to play with.

Sloanasaurus said...

I think worse then this, is the images now coming forward of people freezing without electricity. Where is Obama, the great leader. Why did he close down so many power plants. He has left us out in the cold.

This is where Venckman's Law* comes into play.

* "But if I'm right, and we can stop this thing... Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters."

Venckman's law - Always make sure the voters are provided essential services.

There's some complacency: "Since the states hit hardest are all solidly blue, lower voter turnout won't swing the presidential election...." The state gets the same number of electoral votes regardless of how many people actually vote.

Not knowing that much about New York STATE, I will say that California is a solidly blue state, in the sense that more people vote democrat than republican.

HOWEVER, here is the fallacy or complacency. If there were a big disaster affecting the coastal areas, like the SF bay area or the LA area, the rest of the state is more than solidly red.

If the coastal cities were to be devastated, not only would we see the rioting, looting and other dysfunction, that is happening in NY City and New Jersey (some people laughed at me when I suggested it could happen), then the rest of the state which is predominately conservative, republican and tea party would STILL vote and the 50 electoral votes would go to Romney.

I think that New York state might have this same red[rural and suburban] vs blue [urban coastal elites] split.

Why in the hell couldn't the Boards of Elections just print out paper ballots? God knows there are enough fucking bureaucrats available to design one for each precinct, and God knows printing out 5 million ballots wouldn't add SQUAT to the deficits they're already running...

There are a lot of frustrated, harried, angry people in New York and New Jersey right now, and things will not be anywhere near back to normal by next Tuesday. Even getting to the polls is going to be a major hassle, just like everything else is right now. Could we see them take their anger out on someone? Stranger things have happened.

Can i just note how narcissistic, stupid, and utterly incompetent Barack Obama is?

He should be in New York and New Jersey, working with FEMA to help people. He should be putting the entire focus of the White House (not the campaign staff, they can keep on doing their normal jobs) on helping people in the area. He should have a ton of National Guard going through areas, looking for people who need help, delivering MREs, setting up generators at hospitals, etc.

The press would love it and eat it up. Rather than being flooded with campaign commercials, people would be flooded with images of Obama being President, and doing a good job at it.

But he's a crappy President, a self-absorbed political animal, and an idiot SO he's out "helping himself" looking small, rather than helping other people, and looking big.

(Yes, I know McCain probably killed his bid for the Presidency by "putting his campaign on hold" after the financial crisis hit. The difference is that McCain couldn't actually accomplish anything visible by running back to Washington. Obama could be out at the sites, filmed helping people.)

We need to get this joke out of office, before he kills more people with his utter incompetence.

If you don't heat the homes of the elderly first, you won't need to power the polling stations. Most of the voters will be popsicles.

Actually, we should heat the homes of minorities first so that they're cozy at home and don't want to go out and vote.

This is good. This is how satires are made. The Democrats divert electricity away from old people to kill them off. Republicans divert power to minorities to keep them cozy and make them forget about voting.

I also noticed that Firefox auto-corrects Popsicle to a capital-P. I thought popsicle was a generic noun, but apparently it's a brand-name, just like Band-Aid and Kleenex. The generic term is ice-pop. But would anyone know what I was talking about if I said, "The elderly have been turned into ice-pops"? No. I am going to start a petition for a ballot initiative to make all those brand-name terms generic.

I wonder how many people have died in their apartments in the past 5 days. And there's no way of knowing it, because you can't get to the apartment, can't contact them via cellphone. You just wonder.

This. Plus the unsanitary conditions in many places are sure to cause disease. Feces, oil, gasoline and garbage floating in the water. Unflushed toilets in apartment buildings overflowing whith shit and piss. Garbage piling up. Rats, mosquitos and cockroaches. Elevators not working and the elderly not able to even get up or down from their living spaces. Those who don't even HAVE a living space anymore.

I see bad things on the rise.

So. Instead of taking care of those who need help and concentrating on the massive potential health issues. Bloomberg throws a party for some wealthy running fanatics. Takes needed services from those in dire straits and has a vanity affair.

Well, looks like the union thugs are at it again. American linemen who aren't in a union and are willing to help those on the east coast are getting turned away because they aren't union. Really? Union membership now excludes wanting to help people from non-union members. This is fucked up. How entrenched are you in the union soup that you won't even take help from fellow americans because they aren't union.

Yeah, but they are sending electrical crews, people they asked to come help, back home if they are not union.

I am sure the great people of the Northeast appreciate that and are happy to spend more time in the cold to protect labor unions. Yep, I am certain.

Trey

All that does is remind me of that scene in brazil where the guy is in his apartment asleep with his head in the fridge because his AC went out and Robert Di Nero shows up as a rogue Air Conditioning repair man to come and fix it for him because the bureaucracry is so thick and so large that their union repair men won't do it without the proper paperwork: a 27B-6. Then Di Nero's character, Sam Tuttle fixes it, and the real union AC repairmen show up and try to fix it and they won't because he doesn't have the right paperwork, a 27b-6.